


the laws of mathematics

by ilgaksu



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide Attempt, The Death Cure Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5536919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <span><em>Two and two doesn’t make five,</em> Alby says. His is the first face Newt sees when he shocks awake, alive and trembling in his skin, feeling curiously flayed in amongst all the wet greenery. <em>Two and two doesn’t make five, not even if you want it to. </em></span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the laws of mathematics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i-will-make-you-into-shoes](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=i-will-make-you-into-shoes).



_Two and two doesn’t make five,_ Alby says. His is the first face Newt sees when he shocks awake, alive and trembling in his skin, feeling curiously flayed in amongst all the wet greenery. _Two and two doesn’t make five, not even if you want it to._

Newt doesn’t want it to, and he says so, catching Alby’s wrist and rubbing his thumb over the soft inner skin one scorching morning. The runners have yet to go out and the heat is already up and Newt kisses the centre of Alby’s palm, looks into the blink of Alby’s eyes, dark and obscure like black pearls, and goes: _I’m only asking about us, Alby. One and one makes two. I’m only asking, Alby._

And Alby kisses him, and that day Newt runs, and runs, and _flies_. Back through the maze, back through the Glade, stumbling into Alby’s arms and laughing, laughing, laughing. One day at a time, he tells himself, as Alby directs greenies with a smile that never quite reaches his eyes, moving in his own strange bubble of solitude: the first of them, the first. One day at a time. One and one makes two. One and one makes -

*

Minho is next. Minho, with his kicked-puppy eyes and Atlas shoulders, Minho who cowers, wary, away from the reach of Newt’s hand into the cage.

Minho is their first runner, in a way. If Alby did it, there’s no one to tell but Alby. Minho scrambles out of the cage and just keeps on going; when Newt, stood watching, trips him mid-sprint, it’s only him trying to be kind. Minho’s already rolling to his feet when Newt knocks him back down, puts his foot on Minho’s chest and watches the racking rise-and-fall of it. Minho squints in the sun, but doesn’t break eye contact, and all Newt remembers later is the whites of his eyes in the fall of Newt’s own shadow.

“Easy there,” Newt says, voice pitched softer than he’s ever heard it himself. “Save the running for morning, alright? Stop fucking crowding him,” he shouts over his shoulder, and catches Alby’s eye as Minho takes Newt’s hand to help him up. Alby stares, long and hard and brittle, at the join of it, Newt-and-Minho, Minho-and-Newt. Newt raises his eyebrows. Alby turns his back.

“I don’t know -” Minho begins, voice rusty. He keeps looking around, quick and darting, assessing, mapping. Newt laughs. They’ve all been looking for escape routes for a long time, so much that even when they don’t remember, the imprint of it remains. “I don’t know -”

“Welcome to the club,” Newt says, and pulls Minho back to the shade by his wrist.

*

Falling in love with Minho is nothing like it was with Alby. Newt doesn’t know how he knows, much as he doesn’t know how he knows most things, but when he puts the cord around Alby’s neck for the first time and watches Alby tuck the pendant into his shirt safe, he thinks of tokens of favour, knights errant, mourning jewellery. Minho is the taste of blood in Newt’s mouth, holes in leather and watching Minho frown as he commits something to painstaking memory. He doesn’t even realise it’s happened until one time they make it back into the Glade with ten seconds to go on the clock and Newt doesn’t know how scared he was until one of the others is throwing up in relief and Minho’s knees give out and Newt goes to catch him and -

Somewhere, Newt thinks; hands on either side of Minho’s head in the grass, dust motes and the way the light hits Minho’s eyelashes, Minho very still and warm underneath him; somewhere, someone is laughing, and it’s not them. It’s not them. _How stereotypical._ He hears it in his head, hot like whiplash, and is on his feet before Minho can make a noise.  

“Fuck,” he says, it hitting him all at once like a Griever to the chest, and marches away somewhere safer. He makes it a hundred yards before -  

“Newt,” he hears Minho say, and turns, the tug of it in his chest. “Newt.”

He looks back and Minho’s harness is discarded on the grass next to him, and he’s pulling his shirt off. Newt can see the harness rash around Minho’s ribs, prickling and burgundy with age. His own aches in sympathy. He aches in sympathy around Minho a lot, he thinks, and wonders how long. Sympathy; empathy; affinity.

“You should go talk to Alby,” Minho says. Newt nods.

What a fucking clusterfuck.

*

“You know,” is all Alby says, “you know, you always see problems that aren’t there.”

Newt nearly drops the vegetable basket; does drop it in fact, but catches it again before anything hits the ground. Alby snorts, and Newt glares, and he’s so fucking casual, how dare be so fucking casual -

“That’s how you stay the fuck alive,” he grits out. “Alby. That’s how you stay alive.”

“Yes,” Alby says, unearthing the last of the potatoes from the ground and dropping it in Newt’s basket. He wipes his hands on his trousers and yawns at the same time; Newt sees his face in the sunset and thinks stupid thoughts, the sort that come easy around Alby. “And you could be dead tomorrow, or I could be dead tomorrow, or we could all be. You aren’t mine to offer up or take away, Newt. This isn’t a game designed for us to win.”

“I know, alright,” Newt says, annoyed. Underneath, he shakes. Alby has never said that before, not out loud, not even in the dark. Alby’s eyes are black pearls and it all makes sense: pearls begin with an irritant. Pearls are a protective coating. They are the end product of a survival tactic.

Newt wants to drop the basket and kiss Alby then, push him into the grass and kiss him until he feels the same sort of nightmarish desperation Newt always feels; when he’s running, when they’re touching, the endless yawning hunger that for him seems to be a side-effect of being alive.

“You might as well get what you can from the bastards whilst you can,” Alby is saying then, his face turned towards the last of the sun. The shadows of the Glade’s walls are lengthening. Soon they will reach his feet. “You might as well take back what they’ll let you.”

Newt opens his mouth, and Alby takes the basket from him and tucks it under one arm. With the other hand, he tucks stray hairs behind one of Newt’s ear.

“You’re not going my way,” Alby says, smiling, and the orange of the dying sunlight is in his eyes, and in that moment Newt sees Alby is burning just like the rest of them; Alby is burning just like the rest of them. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

Newt understands. Newt stops Alby and kisses him, long and honey-slow, until the darkness swallows their ankles. Then he turns for Minho’s hut.

And Newt runs.

*

I have them both, Newt says to himself, disbelieving, I have them both. I have them both and they are both happy. Under the circumstances, they are happy. He almost makes the mistake of believing he can have it all, but only almost.

In the end, it’s not enough. The ivy stings. This has never been a game designed for Newt to win.

*

When he wakes up, which he does, he hurts so fucking much he’s sure he’s alive. That, and he can hear Minho and Alby talking outside of medical, their voices low but not low enough.

“What was he even thinking?” goes Minho, voice tense, and just before Newt dropped he let himself think about love, and now he’s back and what’s thought cannot be undone. It threatens to overwhelm him, just the sound of the both of them breathing.

“I don’t know,” Alby says. “I don’t know.”

Newt closes his eyes in relief. Alby’s not going to talk, then. Alby’s gonna keep his mouth shut. Newt knew he’d kept that shuckface around for good reason, except how he hadn’t and -

Newt goes to sit up, and jolted his leg in the process, and here’s the thing: there’s no shame in screaming, in Newt’s eyes. Some of the others don’t like it. It makes them uncomfortable. Newt thinks that even if it doesn’t matter, even if the screaming is like the buzz of a particularly irritating fly to whoever did this to them, then go on: scream away. Annoy the shit out of them. Hound them. Buzz until they swat you down.

There’s no shame in screaming, but apparently he wakes up every last Glader, and there’s far less of a welcome back party that way.

*

“I won’t try again,” he says to Minho one night, and Minho looks up from where he’s hunched whittling by the fire and goes:

“Sure you won’t.”

Alby didn’t tell Minho, but Minho saw the scratches on his hands from the climb, and knew no runner in their right mind would think climbing up the Wall was any kind of escape without a body count, and. And. Newt thinks of running to Minho that first time, how he’d swung on the momentum of the door and nearly fallen over a chair; how Minho had stood up, dropping his tools, to stare, mouth slack; how Newt, between gasps for air, had caught that image up in his mind. Knowing his memory had been taken once, he preserves it as best he can: it’s something he’d miss.

“Trust me,” Newt mutters, “Can’t climb on this fucking leg.” He pokes at the fire with a stick, fast and malicious, just to watch the spark.

“Yeah, well,” Minho snaps back, “I’m not fucking carrying you up there.”

And it’s not funny. It’s not, except for how it kind of is. Except for how it kind of has to be. Newt’s laughter starts off hoarse and gets louder, gets wilder, spirals into the night until the tears sting and Newt cries with it, because it’s so fucking ridiculous, all of it, it’s all so fucking ridiculous -

When Minho joins in, caught up in the hysteria of it, Newt watches Minho bite down on his hand to muffle the noise, doesn’t bother. Newt thinks  _somewhere, someone right now is watching us, and we’re laughing at them._ Right now, it’s on them. It’s them. And Newt thinks: _good._

*

Newt sits in meetings now with Minho’s arm around his shoulder and Alby’s hand on his thigh.

“Scared I’ll do a runner?” he says and Minho tenses. Newt didn’t mean to be cruel. Minho didn’t mean to cage him in. Alby didn’t mean to hold on too tight. All of it is unconscious.

“You always hated the meetings,” Alby says mildly, and Newt snorts, and Minho relaxes, and it’s okay again. It’s okay again.

*

The first time Minho leaves and Newt is both conscious and outside enough to notice, Alby carries Newt to the Wall to see him off. It’s like they’re going to war, Newt thinks, not for the first time. It’s like they’re going to execution. It’s like they’re -

Minho doesn’t like metaphors, and Newt likes Minho, and Newt wonders if the aching will ever stop. It is what it is what it is, says Minho, and Newt is not stupid enough to mistake resignation for carelessness. Minho, like all of them, is discontent, running to outrun. They are rats. Another metaphor. Minho looks at Newt’s mouth and Newt knows they won’t kiss because it’ll feel like a death-seal, it’ll mean they’re entertaining reality, but Newt knows Minho wants to. Alby’s arms are sure and warm, and Alby smiles at Minho and Minho smiles back.

 _We have a mutual interest,_ Alby said once, eyes clear and steady, and Minho had coughed and blushed and looked away, and Newt had muttered _more like joint custody_ from his sickbed: this is how they all cope.

Minho looks at Newt and Newt looks at Minho and -

“After you,” Newt says. Minho laughs, and Newt feels wounded by it all over again. They watch the Wall open silently; Newt looks down the dank passage and Minho readies himself.

“Be careful,” Newt blurts out, hating himself for it. They don’t make promises in the Glade. Minho stops and glances at him, quick and sharp and sweet.

“Don’t die,” he says, and then he’s gone.

It’s all rigged. They’re rats. Newt has them both but everything is limited. Alby carries him back.

*

Sex works like this:

It’s not like dying. It’s not like running. It’s good. Minho doesn’t like metaphors and Alby does nothing but talk in them and Newt has made his own intermediate language from his own hands; two separate worlds, two separate nights, two separate people. Sex works like this: it works.

 _There are easier ways to feel real_ , says Alby one night.   _Do you think they’re watching_ , Minho asks the next.

 _I don’t care_ , Newt says, _I don’t care, I don’t care; let them, I don’t care._

*

Newt digs his hands in and makes a home for himself in the dirt.

And then Thomas arrives, and fucks it all up.

*

 _We’ve got a runner._ Newt thinks of Minho pinned to the ground by his foot, of the ivy’s scrape against his hands, of Alby’s guarded eyes. _We’ve got a runner._ Everyone’s a fucking runner. Newt doesn’t trip this one up this time. This greenie’s entertainment enough on his own.

*

Thomas wants to be a runner, because Thomas is stupid, but Newt sees how Thomas looks at Minho when he says it, and his leg aches, and can you really blame the poor bastard for having eyes?  

Thomas looks at Minho, and Minho looks right on back, and Newt sees them because Newt’s looking at them both, Thomas earnest and Minho harnessed. Alby looks at Newt looking at them both; it’s a carnival of looking, a national fucking feast day. Newt picks tomatoes from the vine, the sun-warmth of them in his hands.

He thinks: _wait until Thomas hears about the harness rash._

*

“Did you tell him about the harness rash?” is the first thing he asks Minho, and Minho just raises his eyebrows and sits down heavily next to Newt on the grass. He looks tired. Newt rubs a smear of dirt off Minho’s cheekbone. They don’t hold hands, but they breathe each other in, and Newt can feel Minho’s heartbeat anyway.

“You want him, right?” Newt asks, and feels Minho tense.

“Yeah,” he says, finally, softly. “You?”

Newt looks over to where Thomas to talking to Chuck, all seriousness to Chuck’s earnestness. Newt nods.

“I could get used to that,” Minho volunteers. “Did Alby corner you earlier?”

Newt thinks of Alby’s eyeroll in the dawn mist as he said: _I’m not your keeper, Newt. I reckon he’ll go off the rails. I reckon he’ll bolt. But take him back anyway. Take back what you can._

Newt hums in agreement, and when he looks up, Minho has fallen asleep. Newt tugs him closer, watches Thomas, watches Alby, and waits for something to happen.  

*

Newt thinks he’ll get used to the sound of them chipping at the Wall, striking through the names; he will, one day. But Alby’s eyes are pearls, Ben is dead, and two and two doesn’t make five. Two and two hasn’t ever made five, and the morning that Alby goes into the Maze with Minho, they both come to say goodbye as though asking joint forgiveness. Newt yanks on Minho’s hair and bites Alby’s lip, and sends them out dry-eyed, the memory of them all the day and the taste of them in his mouth and Newt thinks: mourning jewellery. It’s not until after dusk he wonders if they felt like it was betrayal.

*

Newt only ever loved one boy in the Glade, until it was two, until it was three, and now all of them are dead. He sits by the fire and sees their shadows flickering in the darkness, so he stokes it higher and higher to keep them away. Gally sits down next him silently; Gally’s a bastard when he feels like it, but he’s a bastard who won’t offer cold comfort. Newt thinks: if only I was braver, if only I was faster, if only for my leg my mind myself -

Alby had been stung, and Minho had decided to bring him back, and Minho hadn’t left him and they’d all died trying. _We have a mutual interest._  Newt keeps the fire burning all night, eyes stinging with the heat. He calls it their pyre, and listens long and hard for their screams, because sex isn’t like dying, Minho hates metaphors, and when Alby had seen Newt on the ground he’d come running. Alby tethers and tends the Glade, Minho is patient without being slow, Thomas is savage and angular and unpredictable. He gets used to the past tense.

And then it is morning.

*

Newt doesn’t remember falling ( _jumping_ ) from the Wall. If it wasn’t for his leg he’d wonder if it had ever happened. When he sees them step into the Glade, exhausted and red-eyed and alive, he imagines falling had felt a little like that. The same sense of everything so slow and fast at once.

*

“He saved our lives,” Minho says, insistent, eyes fever-bright, “He saved our lives.”

Gally says he’s mad. Newt thinks _not a chance, Minho would never run wild._ Gally, mouth twisted and angry, can’t see it, or maybe he can: maybe that’s why he’s angry, because with Alby down for the count, with the lead Runner and the second-in-command more than half in love with the greenie, Gally can smell upheaval, insidious as Griever sting. He knows.

They’re all rats. Rats abandon a sinking ship.

*

Gally always did have an unfortunately sound sense of foreshadowing. For now, Newt holds Alby’s hand whilst he shivers, kisses Minho bruised and senseless whilst they shake, watches Thomas watch him with eyes like a brand.

And Newt breaks Glade code. Newt rips it out of himself, brutal and bloody, and doesn’t try and stem the wound. Newt whispers in Alby’s ear, against Minho’s neck, to Thomas by the night fire. Newt breaks Glade code because someone’s watching, someone’s laughing, but last night Thomas killed a Griever, he only ever loved three boys and maybe now he can have them all, and Newt thinks: _who’s laughing now?_

And Newt makes promises.

  



End file.
